ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that reinterpretation of the relation-ship between the colonial state and chieftaincy in the Gold Coast, looking in particular at the interaction between land law, class formation and the structure of indirect rule. The decolonization decision, then, is pushed forward, with very important consequences for our understanding of the imperial or metropolitan dimension of policy-making. The assumption that the chieftaincy, for instance, was swept away in order to prepare for decolonization is an illusion produced by the shortness of the interval, particularly in the Gold Coast, between the inauguration of the chiefs' replacements and the coming of independence with Parliamentary-style constitutions. Between 1944 and 1954 there was an attempt to turn the Indirect Rule system in the Gold Coast into a form of 'modern' local government. One of the basic characteristics of the Gold Coast colonial state has long been known, but only recently remarked upon.
